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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25484974">let's bring them home</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlewichita/pseuds/littlewichita'>littlewichita</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Death, M/M, Not Beta Read, You've been warned, permanently</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 02:22:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,109</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25484974</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlewichita/pseuds/littlewichita</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Joe looked at Nicky from across the battlefield, a few meters separating them from touching. Unsurprisingly, Joe discovered that Nicky was already looking back. Over gunfire and blood, they both smiled at each other. </p><p>A few meters above, the snipers took positions without being noticed. Two shots. One after the other, almost simultaneously. Then nothing.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>156</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>let's bring them home</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is my first fic written in English (it's not my native language), and also the first time that I post on ao3, so I apologise for any mistakes that were made, because probably there were a lot. (I kind of wrote this really quickly, so I'll proofread this again later and edit it)</p><p>If you'd like to yell at me, my tumblr is the same username. I don't really know why I wrote this, I kind of cried while writing it, but I do cry a lot, enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>There wasn’t anything special about that day. Nothing to warn them about what was going to happen. It wasn’t a sunny day, nor there was a storm. It was a terribly normal day when Andy, Nile, Nicky, and Joe took the job that Copley had found for them. Human trafficking. Again. Andy threatened Copley a little bit before going out, just in case.</p><p>Arriving at the docks where the children were being shipped in containers wasn’t the problem. After all, they were very good at their job, even Nile, despite being the new member of their little team. No, the problem arrived when Andy opened the container where the children were being kept. Because of course some of the men were inside with them. </p><p>The fight started quickly after that. Nile diving in front of Andy to protect her from the bullets. Joe sliding next to Nicky when more traffickers started arriving, almost like appearing out of nowhere. </p><p>“Shit” Andy’s shout could be heard above the gunfire. </p><p>Joe kinda agreed with her, he thought when a bullet hit him on the shoulder. He felt the pain a second later and quickly took cover next to one of the containers, gritting his teeth. <em>Now, that hurts more than normal. </em></p><p>This fight had gone to shit rather fast, and while Joe normally wouldn’t mind so much things had changed since Andy lost her immortality. To make matters worse, he had lost sight of her and Nile. Joe trusted that Andy could still take care of herself, and he knew that Nile would be right behind her, protecting her from bullets. It was quite sweet, watching the young immortal being so concerned about Andy despite only knowing her for a few months. But he still worried.</p><p>Shaking his head, Joe focused on the fight going around him. He might not know where Andy and Nile were at the time, but he found Nicky in a heartbeat.</p><p>Joe looked at Nicky from across the battlefield, a few meters separating them for touching. Unsurprisingly, Joe discovered that Nicky was already looking back. Over gunfire and blood, they both smiled at each other. </p><p>A few meters above, the snipers took positions without being noticed. Two shots. One after the other, almost simultaneously. Then nothing. </p><p>It wasn’t long after Andy and Nile finished the job. Andy climbing the containers like a ninja to take care of the snipers, while Nile killed the men who had been guarding the children earlier before they had joined the fight. It only took a few minutes.</p><p>Now all they could hear were their breathing. Andy landed next to Nile, almost giving her a heart attack because <em>Andy you can’t jump from that high up, you’re mortal now</em>. They looked around them, seeing all the blood and the death. And yet something was missing.</p><p>“Where are Joe and Nicky?” Nile asked, looking around her, her voice betraying a hint of panic. Andy’s heart plummeted. She had seen them going down when the snipers shot them. She hadn’t seen them stand up.</p><p><em>This can’t be happening</em>, she thought. It didn’t matter, she needed to be sure. Running towards where Nicky and Joe were last standing, Andy’s head kept repeating the same thing. <em>No, no, no, no. Not again.</em></p><p>She saw them on the ground. Both with shots to the head. Both dead. They weren’t healing.</p><p>“Why aren’t they healing?” Nile’s voice sounded right next to her, and Andy hadn’t realized that the kid had run right behind her. Because that was what she was. A kid. Nile sounded scared, the severity of the moment still not fully sinking yet. </p><p>Andy answered all the same. </p><p>“Their time has come.”</p><p>After a few minutes, Nile started crying silently. Andy was glad, for as much as she felt like the world was crumbling around her, she couldn’t summon tears for her fallen family. So Nile cried for both of them. </p><p>If she really thought about it, Andy wasn’t surprised. She knew, from the moment that she had met Joe and Nicky, that their time would come at the same time. Living in a world without the two of them together was not a world Andy would have liked to live in. </p><p>However, what had surprised her had been that they would die before her. For when she had found that her immortality was gone, she expected to be the first one to die of their group. Not Joe. Not Nicky. Not both.</p><p>Andy sucked a breath, realizing she had stopped breathing for a second. She tried to think something to say, but her mind was blank.</p><p>“Nile,” she whispered, and in the silence of their carnage, it sounded too loud. “You believe in God, right?”</p><p>Nile turned her head towards her, wiping her tears in silence, and nodded once. </p><p>“Wherever they are now, they are still together,” Andy affirmed with a confidence she didn’t really feel. She hadn’t thought about God and the afterlife since she lost Quynh all those years ago. Hadn’t really believed in God in a long, long time. Somehow, she felt that that was the right thing to say because she couldn’t imagine somewhere where Nicky and Joe wouldn’t be together. </p><p>Andy didn’t know if that would reassure Nile, or if she had overstepped, but she didn’t contradict Andy so it must have worked. </p><p>Putting a hand on Nile’s shoulder to draw her attention, Andy looked her in the eyes, ignoring the pain that she was feeling at the moment, the grief. She was used to it, after all.</p><p>“Let’s bring them home.”</p><p>If Joe and Nicky had been alive at that moment, they wouldn’t have been able to remember what was the last thing that they had said to the other. But it didn't really matter, for they hadn’t needed words to speak to each other. </p><p>When Joe last looked at Nicky, his eyes had said it all, the same thing that they had been saying since they met for the first time at the Crusades. “I love you. Words cannot describe how much, for I had spent a thousand years trying to describe it and I could spend a thousand years more. And I had found that even eternity isn’t a long enough time. But I’m happy to have been blessed with the opportunity to be by your side all these years, for living in a world without you is unthinkable.” </p><p>And Nicky’s eyes, exasperated and fond as they always were when Joe looked at him like that, said the same thing that he had been saying for a millennium. “You are an incurable romantic.”</p><p>“I love you too.”</p>
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